XXI

First, this NBHcast is dedicated to both Sonic Youth—you’ll see why—and D. Vasaalotti’s “Swallow My Pride,” a song that I had really wanted to fit on here, somewhere, but lord knows this thing is long enough as is:

Second, if you’re even passingly familiar with our No Big Hair section, you may be wondering why some of these bands are included. Many of them are hardly “new,” after all, and less than half of these songs are from debut releases; in fact, Blank Realm have put out nine(!) albums, and the eldest band here, the Heavy Blinkers, have been around for fifteen years. A lot of these artists have also been on our podcasts before: Rae Spoon, Candy Claws, Bambara…actually, this is Bambara’s sixth podcast, including both of their excellent Fantasy covers. Well done.

Anyway. Not that any of that matters. This entire podcast is exactly what our No Big Hair section has always been about: whether it’s an artist or band that hasn’t yet released an album (Roberta Bondar, GEMS, allie), or are self-releasing a new one after disappearing for a while there (Broken Deer, Heavy Blinkers), or are just Australian (Lower Plenty, Absolute Boys, Blank Realm), this is all really great music well worth giving a shit about, by artists on independent or non-existent labels that we feel could use a lot more of that. People giving a shit, I mean.

So, with thanks to everyone involved in the music you’re about to hear, and to Brent Ables for his help compiling this loveable beast of NBHness, enjoy our newest celebration of shit-giving: